MAGA Rep. Caught Faking Phone Call After Reporter Asks Him About Mike Johnson's Plan To Cut Social Security In Awkward Video

Virginia Republican Representative Rob Wittman was criticized after he was caught faking a phone call when a MeidasTouch reporter asked him about House Speaker Mike Johnson's plan to cut Social Security.

Social Security's retirement and survivor trust fund is now projected to run short of money in 2032, slightly sooner than previously expected. Government trustees said the revised outlook was driven in part by lower immigration, declining birth rates, and the impact of the Trump administration's tax legislation, which extended earlier tax cuts and created a new deduction for seniors.

Those factors were partially offset by expectations of higher wages, which would increase payroll tax revenue. The program's long-term funding challenges stem largely from demographic trends: the retirement of the baby boom generation and a shrinking ratio of workers to beneficiaries. An increase in benefits for certain public-sector retirees is also expected to accelerate the fund's depletion.

Johnson signaled that Republicans may propose changes to entitlement programs next year. He argued that mandatory spending on programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are to blame, saying "the reason we are in trouble is because over 74 percent of federal spending is on autopilot, mandatory spending." He said those programs will need to be "adjusted and fixed."

When approached by a MeidasTouch reporter who asked about Johnson's “secret plan" for Social Security, Wittman pulled out his phone and pretended to take a call, even though the screen was visible to the camera and he was clearly not actually speaking to anyone.

Speaking into the phone, Wittman said:

“Hello. Hey, how you doing? I’m good. I’m good with that. ... I appreciate that. I've actually got more efforts I'd like to talk to you about." ...

"I really do appreciate this. I really do need some more of your input. If you can actually reach out, I can make sure we can do more of this.

“Yeah, I’ll be there in just a few minutes. I’m heading your way right now.”

Despite the reporter's repeated questions, Wittman continued to pretend to be on the phone for a full minute before "hanging up" and then walking off.

You can watch what happened in the video below.

Julian Andreone, a Capitol Hill reporter with Drop Site News, responded to the video with a video of his own revealing that Wittman had pulled the same trick last week—and kept going even after Andreone specifically mentioned "there's no one on the phone."

Wittman was harshly criticized.

Wittman's stunt came as the Trump administration made its case to cut entitlements, releasing new projections showing that Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund, known as Part A, is expected to remain fully solvent only until 2033. After that point, the program would no longer have sufficient revenue to cover all scheduled benefits without changes.

In their report, the Social Security trustees—including Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling—urged Congress to address the programs' long-term funding gaps "sooner rather than later."

Clearly none of these people are thinking about how this will impact the GOP's chances this November.